I want to raise the alarming fact of declining passenger market share being experienced at Shannon International Airport. The Minister of State will be aware that his Government in 2012 separated Shannon Airport from the Dublin Airport Authority. At the time, that policy decision was described by the Government as historic. The aim was to increase passenger numbers at Shannon to 2.5 million passengers per annum. The project has failed dismally. Passenger numbers have not reached anything near that figure. In fact, they are at just above half of it. We have had a number of airlines pull their routes from Shannon. Again yesterday, Ryanair pulled three routes. At the time of that decision, dissenting and questioning voices were rubbished by the Government and others. SIPTU raised very valid questions and the Taoiseach went so far as to say that it was a defeatist attitude. The facts speak for themselves. The market share of the Dublin Airport Authority in 2011 was 78% and it is now 86%. The market share of Shannon Airport in 2011 was 7% and it now stands at 4.4%. Can the Minister of State point to anything in either the programme for Government or legislation which will arrest the decline of Shannon Airport and other regional airports?

I thank the Deputy. Certainly the approach of Government is to try to ensure that there is balanced regional development. In respect of aviation policy, all of our airports on the west coast are critically important, from Cork right up to Donegal, including Kerry, Shannon and Knock. It is a very challenging environment at present for Shannon, particularly with the loss of Norwegian Air as a result of the Boeing MAX issue, which was another blow for the airport. I am working very closely with the aviation section in the Department and Tourism Ireland to see how we can improve the situation at Shannon. Since 2011, we have seen huge growth overall in terms of routes into and out of Ireland. That was also helped by the Government's decision to scrap the airport tax, which had been a very regressive move. We have maintained that this has been very helpful in terms of growing aviation in Ireland. We will continue to work and try to put more money in. I am currently campaigning to get more funding to support all of our airports, particularly our airports outside Dublin, in sourcing new routes and supporting the existing ones.